


Asylum

by peacensafety



Category: IRIS (TV), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Assassins, F/M, M/M, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 16:42:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacensafety/pseuds/peacensafety
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has always been a very bright kid, so when he is taken away after his mom dies to go to a special school, it takes years for his dad to figure out that it's not normal for a boarding school to never send the kid home to visit. When the boarding school is discovered as a front for a governmental agency intent on training the kids as weapons, Stiles is sent back to his dad and straight to the public high school so that he can become reintegrated into society. </p>
<p>Stiles isn't the only one who has changed during his eight years away, though. Is this situation any better than the one he left behind?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For my dad, who didn't listen to the social workers urging him to choose a better behaved kid, or at least one who didn't lie so much. Who always asked me to tell him more when I did lie, and who believed that the monsters under my bed could be fought off as long as I gave him enough details about them. 
> 
> I love you daddy, and I miss you already.

Stiles breathed in the scent of fresh cut grass, opening his eyes to stare back at the beautiful man lying beside him. His blue-green eyes smiled back at him, and the breeze flirted with his black hair. It was peaceful and the sky was blue, covered in puffy little clouds. The man had been in his dreams his whole life, always a few years older than him and always a peaceful presence. Stiles sometimes thought of him as his conscience.

“Look,” the man said, his mouth spreading out into a small smile, “it’s a rainbow.”

Stiles looked up and smiled at the colors spreading above them, and then looked back at the man at his side. He frowned when he found that the man was gone, and he sat up just in time to see that the sky wasn’t actually blue and white, it was grey and the clouds were black and moving in at a rapid pace. Lightning rent the sky above him, and Stiles got up to start running, because he knew he was in danger. 

“Stiles,” his dad called, and Stiles ran towards the voice, “Stiles!”

Stiles sat up in his mostly empty room, staring at his father looking at him, worried, in his bedroom doorway. He tried to disguise the fact that he had been woken from a nightmare, but the worried look on his dad’s face told him that his dad already knew.

“First day of school,” his dad said as he bit the inside of his cheek.

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, I’m up.”

“If you’re not up for it, we can wait another week. The doctor said that it was okay if you waited another week, you’ll be excused.”

“No, I want to go. I can’t sit here anymore and not go insane,” Stiles said, and then he winced at his choice of words.

His dad winced too, probably from the memories of Stiles in a strait jacket just a few weeks before.”Well,” he said, “I got pancakes waiting for you downstairs.”

Stiles nodded, and when his father left his room he got up to change into his clothing.

He quickly put on his red hoodie and a pair of jeans, threw on a sloppy pair of sneakers and grabbed his grey backpack. He put a beanie on and threw the hood of his shirt up over his head, feeling kind of protected that way. It wasn’t quite cold enough to justify the layers of clothing, but Stiles needed them.

“Do you remember Nurse McCall from the hospital?” his dad asked casually.

“No dad, I have absolutely no recollection of someone who was in my recovery room every day for three weeks last month,” Stiles said a tad bit sarcastically.

His dad ignored his sarcasm, “She has a son who is your age. You two were close before you… went away. She promised me that he would look out for you while you… transition into your new environment.”

Stiles tried to remember what it was like before, tried to remember being close to someone. He couldn’t, and his head started to hurt.

“The boy’s name is Scott. You two used to live in each other’s pockets,” his dad tried to jog his memory.

“Scott McCall?” Stiles asked.

“Do you remember?” his dad sounded so hopeful, it hurt.

“Um, maybe a little?” Stiles lied. He honestly had trouble remembering his dad, sometimes.

“Good, good, that’s a good sign,” his dad’s smile was blinding. 

Stiles decided that his lie was worth it, to see that look on his dad’s face. “Yeah, um… yeah. Scott McCall, my old… Irish-American friend…”

His dad’s face fell, and Stiles knew he screwed up. How did he screw up? McCall was Irish, wasn’t it? Unless his dad said MacCall, and in that case it would be Scottish, but he remembered the nurse’s nametag clearly said ‘Melissa McCall,’ but then again she didn’t look very Irish herself, now that he thought about it. Scott must have been mixed then, but with what?

A car pulled up outside, and Stiles immediately stood up, looking around the room. He forced himself to relax as a kid his own age came in. He had dark hair and eyes and tanned skin, and his jaw was crooked. “Stiles!” he said, excitedly.

“Scott!” Stiles said, acting like he recognized the boy for his dad’s sake. 

“Mom told me that you were starting school today, so I told her that I would drive you and everything, I can’t believe that she wouldn’t let me come over before now!” Scott was grinning so hard that Stiles was a little afraid that his face would crack in half.

“Well boys, I’ll leave you to it then. If it gets to be too much, Stiles, give me a call and I’ll take you home, okay?” his dad was clearly uncomfortable letting Stiles go back to school so early, but Stiles really needed to do this. He was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to later, if he didn’t do it now.

“Bye dad!” Stiles said. He and Scott left the house, and Stiles got into the car with Scott.

“What was it like? There was stuff on the news, but no one really said anything at all…”

“It was just a school,” Stiles lied.

“Were they really doing experiments on you and stuff? Did they strip you naked and make you take weird drugs?”

“There was no nakedness,” Stiles said honestly. 

“So there were drugs then? What kind? Did you see things?” Scott kept asking questions.

“Dude, I really don’t remember who you are. I was just acting like I did so that my dad wouldn’t freak out anymore than he already was,” Stiles said.

“I know,” Scott said after being quiet a moment. “I just wanted to pretend that you were back and that we were going to be friends like old times.”

Stiles looked at the kid sitting next to him in what was obviously his mom’s sedan. He looked crushed by Stiles’s confession, and Stiles felt immediately guilty. “I’m sorry I don’t remember. You seem pretty cool.”

Scott grinned at him again. “I am totally cool.”

“So, tell me about yourself. If we’re going to be like old times, I should probably know things about you.”

“They’re putting you in all my classes, so you’ll find out about those soon enough. I play first line on the Lacrosse team, and I’ve got a girlfriend who is the hottest girl in the entire school. Seriously, seriously hot. She smells like flowers,” Scott said with a wistful smile. “I hang out with my… clique, and I work part time at a veterinarian’s, cleaning out cages and taking care of animals. Mostly the dogs, because cats don’t really like me. Like, ever. And… well, there’s other stuff, but it’s kind of… boring.”

Stiles nodded. He had been trained at the old school to look for signs of liars, but he put that information to the back of his head. Scott might tell him later, and he might not. It didn’t matter to Stiles in the least. 

There were a lot of people staring at him and Scott when they got out of the car. Stiles tried to figure out if it mattered that they were staring, but he thought that he was pretty safe and wouldn’t have to fight anyone any time soon. His head started hurting again, but he ignored it. It was probably just a reaction to stress, in any case.

“So, this is Stiles?” a tall blond boy walked up to them, taking his place at Scott’s side like he belonged there. For all Stiles knew, he probably did.

“Yeah, Stiles, this is my best friend, Isaac,” Scott smiled at Stiles like he should be excited.

“Good to meet you,” Stiles said, with the biggest, fakest smile he could muster up. He made his eyes crinkle up and his body relax, because those things were what people subconsciously looked for when they were assessing strangers for potential threats.

Isaac smiled at Stiles because he bought the fake smile. Everyone always did. “Scott said you two were quite the pair, back in the day.”

Stiles nodded his head in agreement. “I guess so.”

“It took a long time, filling your shoes,” Isaac was saying these things in warning, so that Stiles wouldn’t steal his best friend away from him. Stiles understood.

“Well, I suppose we’ll have to be the Terrifying Trio now, huh?” Stiles offered. He wasn’t going to be friends with Scott again, because there was no way that he would be able to be friends with anyone who hadn’t been through what he had been through. Stiles was probably not capable of friendship ever again. Isaac apparently needed this reassurance though, because once that was said he relaxed in Stiles’s presence. He was still nervous, still wary, but Scott didn’t notice.

Stiles sat in his first class at Scott’s side. It was cute, the way that the boy was trying to protect him from outsiders, and it was actually charming that he tried to share things like his textbook or his notes. He was worried that Stiles wouldn’t understand what was being taught.

In all honesty, it had been years since Stiles had an English class. At his school, he studied slightly different subjects. They had been required to read certain novels and watch certain television shows so that they wouldn’t stick out in social situations, the very few social situations they were allowed, but academics were slightly more focused than simple interpretations of poetry.

Their second period class was very dull. Stiles had taken Algebra II when he was ten, back when he had still thought that the school he was going to was simply for the gifted and talented, however strict the mental and physical discipline his professors had insisted on. 

Third period was Economics, then History, and then Chemistry, all of which made Stiles want to die from sheer boredom, and then Stiles found he and Scott at a lunch table surrounded by people he didn’t know. Stiles could feel himself tensing up, and the weird thing was he knew that all the others at the table knew it. Most people couldn’t guess at his emotions at all, he had regularly bluffed his way through situations that literally made grown men sweat and break, had lied through multiple polygraph tests with the most outrageous stories, but every single person sitting at the table with Scott knew that he was tense.

“So Stiles, what do you like to do for fun?” one of the boys asked. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and he had a girl with long strawberry blond hair wrapped around his arm.

Stiles glanced at Scott, who frowned back at him because he didn’t know that information and he was obviously curious. “I’m sure from watching the news that you know we weren’t allowed times for… fun.”

The boy blinked at him. “You had to have had free time,” he said. “What did you do?”

Stiles wished he had some kind of answer. “We were given food at five-thirty. We had physical education from six until ten. We studied from ten-fifteen until three, when we were allowed ten minutes to eat. We studied more until eight. We took another round of physical education until eleven, when we were allowed to eat, shower, and then sleep.”

Stiles could feel them all staring at him, but he concentrated on eating. He wished one of them would change the subject.

“So, what are we doing this weekend? We should introduce Stiles to fun,” Scott grinned at him.

Stiles stared at the boy who was his former best friend, and the kid just blinked at him happily. Stiles didn’t understand where that emotion came from.

“We should teach Stiles how to play Lacrosse,” one of the bigger boys said. He was the only black kid at the table, and after Stiles glanced around at the cafeteria he realized that he was one of the very few black kids at the school. Demographics were arguing strongly on the all white side of the table. There weren’t a huge amount of Asians at the school, either, and it looked like Scott represented the entire Latino/Native American population by himself, since Stiles had decided he looked kind of mestizo.

“Sounds good,” Isaac said. He grinned at Stiles. “It’s kind of a rough sport.”

“Did you have friends?” Scott’s girlfriend asked. Stiles remembered that her name was Allison, and she was quite pretty.

“Vick,” Stiles said. “Vick is my friend.”

“Yeah? Where’s he from? Did he get to go home?” Scott asked. 

“Vick… he’s still in the hospital,” Stiles said. 

Everyone was quiet. “Was he hurt, when everyone got out?” the girl with red hair asked.

“No, he is having more problems adjusting to… civilian life,” Stiles said.

Stiles knew everyone got quiet because they weren’t sure how to react to that information. They knew something bad had happened because the news kept saying that they weren’t allowed to share everything that they had discovered, but they did share that most of the children were highly psychotic after their education and that most would not be allowed to return to their parents until evaluations were finished by psychiatrists for the safety of the general populace. 

“What was he like?” Scott asked.

“Vick was good, at everything. He was the best, actually,” Stiles smiled, but he made himself quit when he saw that most of the people were uncomfortable with his smile. “He was… he was utilized more than any of us. Out of all of us, he was the school’s favorite tool.”

“What made you friends?” the red-headed girl asked.

“We often shared the same assignments,” Stiles said. “We preferred working with each other.”

“What kind of assignments?” the girl asked.

“That’s classified information,” Stiles said. He went back to eating.

The table was quiet for a while. 

“If you worked together a lot, and he was the best, doesn’t that mean you were really good, too?” Scott asked.

Stiles looked at him. “We were different tools,” he said. “Vick was more like, infiltration and elimination. I was better at information gathering and logistics.”  
“Vick was an assassin?” the red headed girl asked.

Stiles looked at her. He didn’t say anything, because that too, was classified. Of course Vick was an assassin. What exactly did people think happened when you gathered a bunch of children who were gifted and talented and kept them away for years from their families in a boarding school.

“Wait, so were you and Vick the team that they sent out the most then?” the girl asked, “You planned the assassinations, and then Vick carried them out?”

Stiles was told that most people would be uncomfortable with his role in the school. It wasn’t the most glamorous, but his doctor said that once people fully understood what he had done that he would be looked at differently. After looking at the reactions of the people sitting at the table he was at, he was surprised to discover that none of them looked horrified at what his job had been. They looked thoughtful, and they kept looking at each other to evaluate what the others were thinking.

Stiles knew that friends could communicate without words, but it was as if a whole conversation was being held in front of him. He knew that he and Vick had conversations like this before, but they were strange at the school because of their friendship. This was a whole lot of kids to be having a conversation like this, and Stiles knew that was weird in itself.

“I have to attend a session with the school counselor,” Stiles said, in order to stop the weirdness. “Can one of you show me where that is?”

“I can,” one of the darker boys at the table said. Stiles vaguely recalled that the blond one with the girlfriend had called him Danny at one point. “I’ll be back,” he said to the rest of the kids at the table, and he stood up and waited for Stiles to follow him.

They threw their trays into the slot at the cafeteria, and Stiles started walking with Danny down the hall.

“I’m sorry if they got nosy,” Danny said, “they just like knowing what’s going on in town.”

“I don’t care,” Stiles said.

Danny looked at him, trying to figure out if he was lying.

“I really don’t care,” Stiles said. “Things are going to come out, and it would be worse to make friends with people and then have them shy away from you because they think you lied to them about something like this. If they don’t want to associate with me because of what the news is going to say about me in the future, they should have that option now.”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “You’re pretty upfront.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, secretly glorying in the fact that he could use slang.

“Well, we’re here,” Danny said, gesturing to a seat outside the counselor’s office.

Stiles nodded, and watched as Danny walked away. He turned to the door and went in.

“Stiles, I’m Ms. Morrell,” the counselor looked up at him with a smile.

Stiles nodded. “Are you really the counselor here, or did they send you in specially for me?”

“I’m really the counselor here. Why would you think that they sent me in for you?”

“To make sure that I didn’t lie my way out of the asylum,” Stiles said.

“Did you?” she asked.

“I know what answers you want to hear,” Stiles said, sitting down at the chair she gestured him into.

“Yes, they told me that you would. They also said that you wouldn’t necessarily give me that,” Ms. Morrell said. “Would you like to read your file?”

“Not especially,” Stiles said, looking at the manila folder that she offered him. “I’m not sure why they let me out.”

“They said that you were highly adaptable, that you didn’t necessarily buy all the training that you had been given, and while you feel no remorse over your actions you would probably pose no certain threat to the immediate population at large.”

Stiles nodded. “I don’t think that I do,” he said.

“They also said that when given an assignment, you were the most likely to question the necessity of killing. That is not typical of a psychopath. You always gave contingency plans that didn’t necessitate the killing of a target when you felt it appropriate. Why is that?”

Stiles didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to explain why he did that, and he never had. It was the one complaint that their handlers always had about him, why he felt the need to include contingency plans. He never got into trouble for them, and occasionally it had saved a target’s life. Vick would remove the target from the situation instead of killing said target, and he would go to prison or into protection. Stiles could never explain the need to preserve life or why he wanted to do that so badly. 

“How do you feel about being at school today?”

“I enjoy the routine, but I find the classes rather elementary,” Stiles answered. 

“We probably don’t have anything challenging enough after your education to stimulate you. Do you still think that attending high school is a step that you need to take? You know you can go to any college you choose at this point.”

“I’m aware of that,” Stiles said, “But if I want to be a contributing member of society, I feel that I should develop healthy peer relationships in order to feel more connected to my surroundings. I don’t think that attending college with the majority of the population above my age bracket would be conducive to this plan.”

“I find that your decision to associate with Scott McCall interesting. The boy is nowhere near your intelligence, and his friends are highly cliquish and not known to be welcoming to outsiders. Would their rejection to your presence in their group set back your development?”

“It’s possible,” Stiles said, “But I chose Scott because there is a history. He remembers it, even if I don’t.”

Ms. Morrell nodded her head. “They aren’t bad kids, but they do tend to find trouble a lot. Your presence might benefit them, but I’m worried about how your state could be affected by them.”

“You seem worried about them, despite your claim that you think I could be hurt by them,” Stiles observed.

“I am. They have secrets, too.”

“I understand that most people do,” Stiles said, leaning forward so he could study the counselor’s face. “No, you are worried about something else. Ms. Morrell, I will not harm your students, nor will I share their secrets with another entity. You have probably read in my file that I have a great deal of confidential information about the other children that were in the school with me. You will have also read that I have never shared any of that information no matter how I was questioned. Scott and I apparently had a close relationship before I left when I was eight years old. Until Scott gives me a reason to no longer trust him, I will trust whatever instincts I had that made him my best friend in second grade. I am not prone to revenge should Scott ever turn on me or take away my reason to trust him, do you understand?”

Ms. Morrell studied Stiles for a while. “Would you like a pass to go back to class?”

Stiles understood that she was dismissing him. “Thank you for being candid with me during our time. I will be back tomorrow, unless you think that I am sincere enough in my attempts at assimilation into civilian society?”

“I am not here to judge your attempts at normal life, Stiles. I am here as a sounding board should you have questions about your role.”

Stiles nodded. He took the pass that Ms. Morrell had given him, and he went out to the school parking lot to sit on the back of Scott’s car until school was dismissed. He had a lot to think about.


	2. Chapter 2

Derek doesn’t always dream in color. It wasn’t anything that’s ever bothered him, and the times he did dream in color it’s when the boy is there. The boy started out always looking broken, and he never talked, but Derek knew it was his childhood friend Przemysław Stilinski. In Derek’s dreams, he was always walking alongside of him.

Derek tried talking to him a few times, but the boy never answered back. He never thought anything of it, because it’s a dream and who takes a dream seriously anyway? Derek would point things out to the boy, try to get a facial expression that isn’t serious, try to take whatever cares are on the boy’s mind off for a while. Derek thought the boy has turned into a projection of himself, the lost child who will never smile again.

He woke up from his latest dream suddenly. He wished he could remember the expression the boy had when Derek pointed the rainbow out to him because he thought it was important. There were never rainbows when the boy was around before, just cold buildings with blank walls. He wondered if the influence of his pack is what is changing Derek’s dreams.

His pack came around after school that day, and they seemed more nervous than usual. Derek knew that he wasn’t a great Alpha, but they had finally settled into starting a relationship as an actual pack after Lydia had brought Jackson back to life after the whole kanima thing. She had tried to get everyone together, and while there was still a lot of distrust Derek knew at least his betas were hanging out together at school. He thought that it was a good thing. Not only that, but turning Scott’s and Jackson’s childhood best friends had been a good decision on his part. One that he should have made much earlier, because Isaac and Danny were great at calming both Scott and Jackson.

“Do you think we should tell him about us?” Danny asked. “He shared a lot of personal information about himself so that we would know what we were getting into if we befriended him, I just think that we should extend the same courtesy.”

“It cost him nothing to tell us that,” Lydia said. “He didn’t care if we knew that he had killed people.”

“He was uncomfortable though,” Jackson said, “During the entire lunch, he couldn’t figure us out and it made him uncomfortable.”

“What are you talking about?” Derek asked.

“Stiles came to school today,” Scott said, and he sounded so ridiculously happy that Derek felt bad for not knowing what a Stiles was.

“You remember, his friend that was in School 187?” Isaac looked at Derek.

Derek blinked back at the pack.

“It’s been all over the news, Derek, really,” Allison said. “The school the government set up to train little kids into assassins?”

“What…” Derek said. “We got a kid trained as an assassin in Beacon Hills?”

“He isn’t an assassin,” Scott protested. “He said that he wasn’t used like that, it was his friend Vick!”

“Scott, he also said that he planned the assassinations, you do understand that was what he was saying, don’t you?” Lydia always seemed to have no patience with Scott whatsoever.

“Stiles isn’t like that though, Stiles doesn’t like hurting people,” Scott frowned, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“He’s been gone for eight years, Scott,” Isaac tried telling him gently.

“No, my Stiles isn’t like that,” Scott insisted. “You tell them that they can’t talk about Stiles that way, Derek.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Derek repeated.

“Stiles went to School 187, a school that took genius level kids and turned them into weapons. Stiles went to that school, Scott. He told us that he excelled in information gathering and logistics and that he was often sent out on missions with the school’s best assassin. What do you think that means?” Lydia demanded.

“Who is Stiles again?” Derek asked.

“He’s my oldest friend!” Scott looked close to tears.

“The sheriff’s son, Stiles Stilinski,” Jackson told Derek.

Derek almost lost his breath. “I thought he was dead,” he said.

“What? No, why would he be dead?”

“Because when I left Beacon Hills ten years ago, he and his mother were alive, and when I came back they were both gone and you never told me he went to a special school. I thought he and his mom must have died in a car accident or something,” Derek said, trying to remain calm.

“His mom died from cancer,” Scott said, “and then the government came in and said that Stiles had passed all these tests and they had a school that catered to people like him.”

“Apparently, the sheriff didn’t even think that it was weird that Stiles practically disappeared for eight years…” Allison sniffed haughtily. 

“I thought he was dead,” Derek repeated, and he winced when the entire pack looked at him. 

“You knew Stiles, too?” Scott asked Derek.

Derek didn’t say anything, but he didn’t run out the back of his house like he wanted to, either. He knew that would damage things with his pack now.

“How did you know Stiles, Derek?” Lydia asked. “You’re like, almost eight years older than us.”

“Stiles and his mother came over to our house a lot. Our mothers were friends,” Derek said. “I didn’t know that he needed help, I thought he was dead.”

“I don’t think he needs help,” Lydia said, keeping her eyes on Derek. “He’s pretty self-sufficient. He gives me bad vibes, like he’s done extremely evil things.”

“Why do you call him Stiles?” Derek wanted to know.

“Because I can’t say his real name. I’ve always called him Stiles,” Scott said. “You can say his real name?”

“It’s different, but it’s not that hard, Scott,” Derek scoffed. “Przemysław is better than Stiles.” In all honesty, Derek remembered that it had taken him hours to remember how to say and spell the child’s name. In fact, when he was cleaning up from the fire earlier that day, he had found a board where he and Przemysław had written their names on the underside of the back porch. Przemysław + Derek, BFF written in the child’s handwriting. It had almost killed Derek, seeing that, because Derek had spent most of his life thinking that child had been his mate. When he came back to Beacon Hills, he just couldn’t ask anyone about the kid because he couldn’t bear to have it confirmed that he had died with his mother in a freak accident.

“Wow, that is a mouthful,” Lydia said. “In any case, we can’t tell him about us. He might report us to the government.”

“He won’t report us!” Scott insisted, “You don’t know Stiles, he isn’t like that. He’ll keep our secrets!”

“You don’t know Stiles, either,” Jackson said. “All you have is a childhood memory of a kid who got taken away and for all we know, tortured for the past eight years. Eight years, Scott, that’s a long time. You have to expect that there’s going to be some change in him…”

“Bring him here,” Derek hoped he sounded casual. “I can find out for sure.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Erica said. “He doesn’t seem the type who needs a whole lot of clues to connect the dots.”

“Most people don’t believe in werewolves,” Isaac said. “How is he going to connect the dots just from seeing this place?”

“We don’t act natural when we’re here, and one of us will slip up because this is our comfort zone,” Lydia said.

“We’re going to teach him how to play Lacrosse tomorrow,” Jackson said. “Why don’t you come to the field, Derek? We’ll figure it out from there.”

Derek nodded. Tomorrow. He would wait until tomorrow to see a boy that he had thought was dead, a boy who had meant the world to him when he was younger. A boy that he had betrayed by letting Kate Argent touch him. Derek thought that maybe he could wait until tomorrow.

The pack had moved into the almost finished living room. Derek had just finished the drywall that day, and the floorboards were about to be put in after he put popcorn finishing on the ceiling. He wasn’t fond of that machine, but It would last longer than anything else.

“Why don’t you think he remembers me?” Scott asked, and the rest of the pack got closer to him as they heard the sadness in his voice.

“They highly medicated those kids,” Lydia said, “I’d be surprised if he remembers his own name.”

“Danny, look up Vick,” Scott said. “I want to see the kid that was Stiles’s best friend.”

“Scott, the kid is still in the hospital, I highly doubt there are any pictures of him on-line,” Danny said. “Besides, all those kids are covered by Top Secret clearance. If I even typed their names into my computer, I bet I would have FBI down on me and arresting me for breaking parole in seconds.”

Derek suddenly really needed to see Vick, too. “Is Stiles in the news footage?” he asked.

“What?” Danny asked him.

“If Stiles was in the news footage they took of that school, and Vick was his best friend, then I’m sure that Vick was close to him."

“I thought I saw him when it first came on,” Scott said pensively. 

Danny was already pulling his tablet out of his bag. He pulled up the news reels of the evacuation of School 187, and they all watched in morbid fascination as kids of every age were marched out of the school. 

“There, it’s Stiles,” Scott said.

“Are you sure?” Danny asked, pausing the video.

“Can you pull it up, enlarge it?” Derek asked.

“Not with a tablet. Does anyone have a laptop?” Danny asked.

“I do,” Peter said, coming into the room with the kids. He handed the laptop over to Danny. “What are we doing now?”

“Looking up Stiles,” Scott said.

Derek noticed that his pack still tensed up around Peter, especially Lydia. It hurt him that they did that, but he understood that no one was going to trust Peter for a long time. “Who or what is Stiles?” Peter asked.

“Przemysław,” Derek said, “That’s what they’re calling him now.”

“I thought that little Przemysław had died?” Peter asked, his eyes getting wide as he studied Derek’s reaction.

“He was in School 187,” Derek shrugged his shoulders. He tried to play it off, but it was hard because it was Peter and it wasn’t like Peter didn’t know absolutely everything about Derek. Peter and Aurora, Derek’s mother, had spent hours talking about how Derek and Przemysław were going to get married, and how it was going to be such a pain to get the kid’s name into the little line on the family Bible. Not that it mattered now, because the family Bible was a pile of ash.

Danny had pulled the picture up at that point. Przemysław was standing in a group of kids, two smaller ones wrapped around his legs and a tall Asian boy with his arms around his shoulders. They looked tired, and their faces were covered in soot.

“God, he is hot,” Danny said.

Derek bristled at the thought that Danny was checking Przemysław out, but then he realized that Danny was talking about the Asian kid. He realized that they were talking about the kid that was wrapped around him though.

He had long hair that covered the right side of his face, but he had thick eyebrows and a straight nose. His eyes were large and his lips were thin, but he had good cheekbones and a firm jaw line. His eye looked completely crazed, and Derek hated him for touching Przemysław.

“You think that’s Vick?” Scott asked, pointing at the Asian kid.

“Has to be,” Jackson said.

“He is really hot,” Lydia said.

Derek was staring at Przemysław though, because although he hadn’t seen him in years he could still recognize him. He was the boy from his dreams, and he was so, so beautiful. His eyes were the same, clear honey that had gazed up at him in worship as they spent time together, and his hair had darkened to an almost jet black. He still had a few freckles and moles, but his cheekbones popped and Derek wanted to bite his jaw. He was gorgeous.

“He turned out good,” Peter said, smiling at Derek, who just glared at him.

They were interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Deaton, who was holding a bag of files. “There’s something that I think you should see.”

Derek tried to concentrate on Dr. Deaton’s evidence of a new bad, he really did, but he wanted to go see Przemysław. He wanted to hear how he was doing and see how accurate that single picture was, he wanted to touch his friend and to revel in the fact that he was not, in fact, dead. He wanted to go walking in the woods with him like they used to do, play a game of tag or find worms in the ground or any of the thousand things that they used to do together. 

“Rat people?” Lydia asked as Deaton was talking, “Ew.”

Derek blinked, looking at the pictures that Deaton had passed around, but he really wasn’t taking anything in at all. 

Why would he not ask around about the Sheriff’s son? Why would he just assume that the kid had died? He wasn’t sure, and he knew a lot of it stemmed from the fact that he didn’t want confirmation, but why hadn’t he discovered that Przemysław had needed help?

He obviously saved himself just fine, or someone else had done it if that picture was any indication. 

Derek looked up to see that people were staring at him, waiting for him to say something about the situation that Deaton presented. “Danny, Lydia, we’re going to need you to do some research. Jackson, Scott, and Boyd, I need you to scout around town to see what you can find out. Isaac, go with Dr. Deaton and see if there’s any more information you can dig up.”

Everyone looked happy with this plan, so Derek guessed that he had done it right. Peter looked like he was about to laugh, but he looked down and bit his lower lip to keep it from happening. 

“Maybe we should bring Stiles in on this?” Scott suggested. “He said he was really good at information gathering, didn’t he?”

“Not yet,” Derek said, “We need to find out what he’s like now. We can’t trust him just because he was a childhood friend.”

Scott frowned, because it was obvious all he wanted was to have an excuse to hang out with his friend. 

“We’re going to see him tomorrow, aren’t we?” Derek asked.

Scott brightened again, and Allison mouthed a ‘thank you’ in Derek’s direction. The pack broke up, leaving Derek with his Uncle Peter.

Peter watched Derek pace the halls of the house for an hour or two, and then he couldn’t hold it anymore. “That was good, do you have any idea what you sent them off to research?” Peter asked him.

“Rat people?” Derek asked.

“Do you know why they’re researching rat people?” Peter asked him.

“Because they’re invading Beacon Hills?” Derek asked.

“You’ve no idea, you weren’t listening at all to the good doctor, were you?”

“Not a bit,” Derek agreed, putting his shoes on.

“And now you’re going to run across town to stalk the kid who has been trained as an assassin,” Peter said as Derek walked out of the house.

“See you, Uncle Peter,” Derek called behind him. 

Derek wasn’t too far away from the house to hear Peter say, “Well, at least I know that I said something nice before he went to get himself killed. What should I have for tea?”

Derek went to the sheriff’s house, but he hid up a tree when he saw that Scott was already there. He looked into the room that used to belong to Przemysław, and saw Scott, Isaac, and the boy sitting in front of a television.

“Here, you have to push these buttons,” Scott said, showing his friend the combination that he needed to know.

“Why are we trying to run over coins?” Przemysław asked.

The sound of his voice did things to Derek, and he had to grip the branch harder.

“So you can get points to win the game,” Scott said. “Hey, do you remember Derek Hale?”

Przemysław cocked his head to the side. “Was he one of our friends?”

“No, I mean, not mine. He said you two were friends though.”

“Was he at school today? I don’t remember hearing his name.”

“He’s older than we are, which is why I was surprised that he said he knew you. He must have not been important.”

Derek felt his heart falling out of his chest.

“It’s not that he might not have been important, Scott,” Przemysław was saying, “I didn’t let myself remember anything from Beacon Hills. I don’t remember you, and I barely remember my dad.”

Scott nodded. “Do you remember your mom?”

“No. I don’t even know why she’s not here,” Przemysław said. “I didn’t want to ask dad, but did they divorce and she moved away?”

“Stiles, your mom…” Scott took a deep breath, “She had leukemia. She died before you left.”

“Oh,” Przemysław said. He didn’t say anything after that, and Derek was startled to hear that his heart didn’t even skip a beat when he had been informed that his mother had died. “What did she look like?”

Scott went over to Stiles’s dresser and pulled some pictures out of a bottom drawer. “Look, your dad never moved them,” he said, holding the stack out to Przemysław.

Przemysław put the controller down and he stared at the pictures. He flipped through them, and then Derek heard his heart speeding up. “Who’s that?”

“What? Hey, it looks like you did know Derek. What do you know?” Scott grinned at Przemysław.

“I… I remember his face. This is Derek?” he asked, and Derek saw that his hand was trembling as he held the picture up. He still couldn’t see it.

“Yup,” Isaac said, smiling at Przemysław like he had done something good. “That’s Derek. Was he sixteen in that picture? He looked a lot less… scowly.”

“Derek,” Przemysław whispered, staring at the picture some more. 

Derek watched the kid get up and move around, putting the pictures back where Scott had taken them out of the drawer and putting the picture of Derek under his pillow while Scott and Isaac completely didn’t notice. 

“Do you want to go see him Stiles?” Scott asked. “I mean, I thought we were best friends, and you remember Derek and not me…”

“I don’t remember anything else about him, just his face,” Przemysław said, picking the video game controller back up. “I don’t know why we need to go see him.”

Isaac and Scott kept looking at each other, but they picked the video game controllers back up, too.

Derek kept watching them, trying to figure out what it meant. He knew that it was more probable that Przemysław would remember him because of the whole mates thing, and he wondered if he had been seeking Derek out in his dreams. That would make the most sense, although he had never heard of other werewolves being able to catch another’s dream. 

Scott and Isaac eventually went home, and Przemysław fell back on his bed and pulled the picture of Derek out. He stared at it, his fingers sliding across the glossy finish. Derek heard the boy whisper his name, and then his phone range. 

“Stiles,” the voice on the other end said, and Derek didn’t recognize it. It was deep, and he slightly lisped over the s’s in the boy’s nickname.

“Vick,” Stiles said, sitting up. “How did you convince them to let you have a phone call?”

“I refused to eat until they let me. Apparently, it’s a tactic that they’ll put up with,” the other boy chuckled. 

Derek really didn’t like the way that Przemysław relaxed as he heard the other boy’s voice. Which wasn’t sexy at all, Derek told himself, because voices weren’t sexy.

“When do you think that they’ll let you out?” Przemysław asked.

“Possibly never. I have to tell them that it bothered me to kill those people and make them believe it.”

“Vick, you’ve lied your way through worse than this. I got out, I know you can too.”

“Yeah, but you’re not likely to kill again. They seem to think that I’ll do it without orders.”

Przemysław snorted. “Just get out man.”

“Why? I can’t… I can’t live outside without you.”

“I’ll talk to my dad, see if he’ll let you come live with us. We have a spare room…”

“I can’t, Stiles. It’s not the same, I can’t live in the outside world. We talked about this before we even set the whole thing up, remember?” Derek thought about how scripted Vick’s voice sounded at that point, and he wondered if they were using code words with each other.

“They’re probably recording this,” Przemysław warned in the same tone of voice he used for the entire conversation. It was strange to hear that being said with absolutely no emotion whatsoever.

“I don’t care. I need you. Come back. Just, kill someone so we can be together again.”

“You know I don’t work that way, Vick. I can make it to the hospital, if you want me to. It’s only a six hour car ride,” Przemysław got off his bed and looked out the window, so Derek had to duck closer to the tree so he wouldn’t be seen.

“For a visit,” Vick said bitterly. He said something else in a language that Derek didn’t know.

“Just a visit, hyung. I’m going to make it out here. I don’t want to be a tool anymore.” Przemysław… Stiles said some other things in the same language that Vick had used. Derek perked up again when they switched back to English. “Tell me about your doctor.”

“Dr. Kwon,” Vick said, a little sarcastically. “He has no idea what to do with me. They think we’ll work well together because we’re both Korean or something.”

“I’m seeing Ms. Morrell, the school guidance counselor,” Stiles laughed a little. “I did some research, apparently, she’s an expert on the supernatural.”

This caused Vick to laugh. “You think she wrote a paper on vampires or something and that’s what qualifies her?”

“I have no idea. It’s insane. This whole town is insane; they think I’m just going to come back here and fall into place with them doing normal things.”

“We’re never going to be normal, are we?” Vick whispered to Stiles.

“I don’t think so, hyung,” Stiles whispered back. “But I’m going to fake it ‘til they buy it.”

Derek waited until Stiles had his back turned to the window, and he watched him pull up Vick’s hospital and the psychiatrist that was his attending. Stiles soon had documents on his laptop that included the doctor’s photo, his transcripts from college, his thesis, and his address and his phone number. 

Derek dropped to the ground silently as he heard Stiles reporting the information back to his friend. There was something else going on, and he was going to figure out exactly what it was before he could claim Stiles as his mate.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to see Big Bang tomorrow! I get to see them TOP and GD and SOL and D and V live!!!!

The walls were kind of an eggshell color. His bedspread was more like cotton, and it stood out in painful contrast to the black iron of his bed. His clothing was all bleached white, and he wasn’t allowed to have socks for some reason. Most days they let him out of the strait jacket, but when they tried to come close they had to put more chemicals in his IV and wrap his arms up tight.

He wasn’t going to hurt them, but they didn’t seem to understand that.

Vick stared at the green tree that stood outside his hospital room window. The window was too small to let much in, but he could count all four hundred eighteen leaves on the branch that came closest to him. The color was almost painful when compared to the pure white of the room he was in. Sometimes, he pulled his hair out so that he could see another color, and his black hair would reflect reds and blues from the florescent light bulbs overhead and calm his nerves some.

If Stiles was here, at least he could look into the boy’s yellow eyes, because they had always calmed him down.

There had been six kids that had started with them. Vick was the one everyone picked on, because Vick had been fat and ugly and hated. When Stiles came, because he hadn’t come until the middle of second grade, Stiles wouldn’t let anyone pick on him. He wouldn’t let anyone touch him, or say mean things about him, and Stiles had helped him with their physical training as long as Vick helped him with his math. It had been a fair trade, although Vick couldn’t figure out who had trained the other harder. When it came to weapons practice though, Vick and Stiles were the best in the class, and they were paired with each other often so that the other kids wouldn’t get so discouraged.

Growing up next to Stiles calmed a piece of Vick that he didn’t even know that needed calming. They confessed to each other that they couldn’t remember a time before the school, that they couldn’t remember having friends outside of each other, that they barely remembered what their own parents looked like. It was okay though, because Vick had Stiles and Stiles had Vick, and they would have probably been the world’s greatest team until they were killed if Vick could have just kept his big mouth shut.

Vick and Stiles had never paid much attention to anyone besides themselves. Most of the times, they even slept in the same bed together and ate out of the same lunch tray. When they were given assignments, Stiles told Vick what needed doing and Vick did it. But this time it was Vick that looked up, and he realized that there was something missing from their lives.

“Stiles,” Vick said one night after an assignment in Seoul, South Korea. “Stiles, I know what everyone around me is saying.”

“I do too, Vick,” Stiles said, confused. 

“I don’t always know what people are saying, Stiles. Like when we had to go to Baghdad, you remember that? I didn’t know what people were saying then.”

Stiles frowned. “I guess I didn’t, either.”

“Stiles, how come we know what people are saying in Seoul and not in Baghdad?” Vick asked.

Stiles frowned, swallowing the pill that their handler had given them just a few minutes before. Vick had already taken his. He had his thinking face on, which Vick was accustomed to, and which meant that Stiles liked it quiet for approximately three to five minutes. 

“They talk like you used to talk when I first started school,” Stiles said, looking down from their hotel window at the people passing on the street.

Vick noticed their target then, walking past them on the street. She was tall and beautiful, willowy, with silky black hair and eyes that were shaped like his own. Her skin was darker than his by just a few shades, and her clothing looked like it had been made especially for her. She wore black high heels.

“She’ll come out of the office late again,” Stiles said. “We can wait, that way there’s less people around.”

Vick nodded. He was never surprised that Stiles thought about more than one thing at a time.

“Maybe it’s that they’re speaking Korean, and we never really knew that was what you were speaking because no one told us it was a different language?” Stiles asked. 

Vick had nodded his head and shut the hotel window. It was a strange thought, but it made perfect sense. 

Vick was ripped out of his memories by voices in the hall. He crept near to the doorway silently. He was good at moving silently, better than Stiles even.

“Why is that one still in confinement?” one of the voices asked.

“He’s having a harder time with the medication,” the doctor said. “It really messed with his serotonin levels. He is having problems feeling any emotion at all, and he isn’t stable with his reactions to external stimuli.”

“He was best friends with that Stilinski kid though, wasn’t he?” the first voice asked.

“Yes, that kid is like a machine. He stopped taking the meds altogether and didn’t seem to have been affected by the lack at all. His file said that he never really reacted the same way that the other kids did to begin with, like he had some sort of psychic barrier that none of the others had.”

“Psychic barrier? Really? They’re going to pull in the supernatural when they can’t explain what was happening by science?”

“That these kids survived with any kind of mental stability at all is a credit to the scientific community. I couldn’t believe the Stilinski’s test results, even though he had taught himself large amounts of psychology by that time. He seemed to have read everything that he could about personality abnormalities, and he had diagnosed himself and then dealt with it as any psychiatrist would have prescribed. He listed his own therapeutic decisions and his observations about his reactions. It was unreal, to see an adolescent take control like that.”

“And this kid in here, even though they were best friends, he couldn’t have done the same thing?”

“This kid was broken before he got into the school. His parents…”

Vick couldn’t hear any more of their conversation because they were moving down the hall. He sat on his bed, biting his nails. It was a habit that he had picked up from Stiles. He smiled at the thought.

Vick knew that he couldn’t do what Stiles had done. He had pointed out to Stiles that he thought it was strange that some of the kids had letters from parents at home, and Stiles had observed that his father wrote to him occasionally. Vick was confused; his parents never wrote to him. Stiles just pulled Vick into one of his hugs, something that he could use to make all the bad things in his life go away. 

Vick stared at the bars on his window. It wouldn’t take a whole lot to make them go away; they had been taught how to escape or break into rooms, had spent a whole week on it in fact. It had been one of the best times of their training: they would get locked up in an impossible situation and then be timed on how long it would take them to get out of it. 

Stiles was the best at it. He would worry screws on the door until they popped out, or he would find a ceiling tile that led to air ducts, he could bribe or distract guards or pick locks or make ropes out of practically anything. Vick was usually his partner in the training exercises, and Vick could cover his back with whatever weapon they had come up with. It was a partnership that had worked out perfectly. 

This situation, however, was not something that Vick would need Stiles on. It was a simple barred window, with a tree growing right next to it. Vick could have gotten out of this room at any minute he chose. He was waiting though; Stiles told him that they needed a clean bill of health. Vick knew he was right. If he stepped foot outside of this hospital before he was deemed sane they would shoot him.

Vick heard more footsteps coming down the hall. These sounded different than the doctor’s steps, and Vick trusted the feeling that there was danger. Vick had good perception of this, it had saved him and Stiles so many times before. He opened the bars to his window, which he had already unscrewed of course, and climbed into the tree, shutting the bars and the window behind him. It was a good thing that he had done so, because he recognized the man who stepped into his room; gun held to the side of his face.

When they had been in South Korea, Vick and Stiles knew that their target was an agent for a society that wanted to further the interests of North Korea. They knew that there were plenty of other agents, but that this one was dangerous because she was extremely good at getting through computer security systems. What they hadn’t known or been briefed on was that her boyfriend was one of North Korea’s best assassins. 

Youngbae Dong was in his room, and Vick knew that was a bad sign that he had probably figured out where he was. He would forever blame Vick and Stiles for the murder of his girlfriend, which was probably fair because he had shot the girl in the head. Vick could also figure out that if he had figured out where he was, he probably also knew where Stiles was. 

There was no way he could get back into the hospital with Youngbae there, and Stiles needed to be warned. Vick thought for just a few minutes before he climbed down the tree the rest of the way and casually walked off the hospital lawn. He made sure that he looked like he knew where he was going and held his head high. Most of the other patients and doctors paid no attention to him whatsoever, because he had been held in solitary for so long none of them had seen him before. It was a good thing, because Vick really didn’t want to hurt any of them on purpose. 

He slipped into the woods, not bothering to hide where the dirt and the leaves left stains on his white clothing. It would help with disguising the fact that he was dressed in hospital scrubs and barefoot. 

He found a campsite that some hikers had left behind and helped himself to a pair of jeans that were a little snug. He slipped into some tennis shoes that were too big, and grabbed a sweater. He found a few granola bars and then he slipped them into his pockets. 

He walked until he was downtown. There was a gas station at the edge of town was being held up by a guy with a shaky grip. Vick smiled, he loved opportunities.

“Put the gun down, dumbass,” Vick told him, after staring for a few minutes.

“Man, shut up or I’ll shoot you,” the assailant shouted. 

The store clerk had an interesting expression on his face of, ‘Not again,’ and ‘I hope this is over soon.’ 

Vick quickly stepped into the shooter’s space, grabbed the gun from him and held it to his head. “You done yet?”

The shooter wet his pants. Vick was used to that. 

He turned the gun on the cashier, “I need forty bucks dude,” he told the cashier. 

The cashier passed him two twenties, and then Vick took some food and a drink. “Thanks man,” he said, and then he put the gun in the back of his pants and walked out. 

He checked it, as soon as he was away from the station. The safety had still been on, and there were only three bullets, but Vick figured that he could work with that. 

He found an old Dodge Charger outside of the gas station. He popped the lock, climbed into the front seat, and leaned down to pull the wires out from under the steering wheel. He broke them and stripped the wire a little before hitting them together, smiling as he heard the engine turning over. 

The steering was very loose and the brakes were way too tight, but Vick could work with this. 

Shooting the hacker hadn’t been terribly hard. She hadn’t been with anyone at the time, and she was almost always on her own. Vick and Stiles had watched her for three days and they hadn’t seen any sign of anyone being with her at all. Later, their analyst had told them that they should have assumed that she was with someone because she was so beautiful. 

Stiles and Vick had stared at each other. What the hell did that mean anyway? 

Their analyst mumbled something about hormones that they had been given, and that it wasn’t that great of an idea to delay their development in favor of having asexual assassins. Vick and Stiles had talked about that comment for months afterwards. 

Stiles had read in one of his psychology books that he was forever stealing from the school library that they should have been going through some sort of sexual development. Most of Stiles’s books said that most boys at their age were hormonally driven and often wanted to have sex with everything. 

It was something that had them both staring at each other. Sex still sounded gross to both of them, but Stiles assured Vick that it was completely normal for sixteen year old boys to want to have sex.

Vick wondered if it didn’t have more to do with the fact that they had been trained to kill since they were eight years old, but Stiles said that it shouldn’t have mattered.

They talked about not taking their vitamin pills with their morning food, but Stiles read that it could be dangerous. There were drugs out there that could mess with their emotions and their thoughts and if that was what they were being given there was a good chance that it could make them suicidal or homicidal if they were to take themselves off of their regimen without an experienced doctor’s supervision. Stiles said they needed to find out what was going on first, and then make a decision from there.

They never did find out what had been put into them, though. They needed to get out of there, and quick. 

Stiles had found out that some of the instructors had taken a special interest in Emily.

It wasn’t that Emily had been friends with either Vick or Stiles. They hadn’t hung out a whole lot, and Emily had been sent on other assignments than they had all the time. It was just that Emily had been younger than they were and Stiles always felt protective of the younger kids. 

Emily wasn’t that special. She wasn’t gorgeous, she wasn’t exceptionally talented beyond just being really good at everything she did. Emily could pass through a crowd and no one would take a second look at her, which made her an ideal agent. 

Stiles had seen a few of the instructors taking Emily away, and because he was always suspicious, he followed them and had seen them doing things to her. He never told Vick exactly what he had seen, but he said it was time to get all the kids out. So Vick helped him, even though they knew exactly what would happen afterwards.

Vick looked around at the highway he was driving on, and he took the north ramp. He was only one hundred fifty miles away from Beacon Hills at that point, but he was going to have to stop and get gas soon. It was okay, he was going to make it. 

Emily’s situation had brought Stiles to the conclusion that they were not safe away from their parents. That Vick knowing how to speak Korean probably meant that his parents had been Korean, and there was a possibility that Vick’s parents didn’t know where he was. Stiles had told Vick that it was possible that even the letters they got from their parents weren’t actually from their parents. 

Vick didn’t know what to think about that. Why would their school be trying to hide that they weren’t actually talking to their parents? That’s when he and Stiles had figured out that whatever was going on, it was probably wrong on some level. The fact that they were hiding what they were doing with Emily was probably wrong, too. They had to hide it because other adults would probably be upset with what they were doing, and that included their parents.

Figuring that out was what had made them decide to enact their plan. There had to be phone calls made, but none of the kids could be traced to those calls. There had to be plans made to lay out the supplies, plans made to get other adults to see the kids, plans made for so many different things that Vick didn’t even know where to start. That was what Stiles was good at, though. He had been trained to plan a full scale battle, and they had definitely been able to pull that off.

Vick stopped only once for gas before he got to Beacon Hills. It was handy to have stolen the forty dollars, although that was exactly how much money it took to fill the tank. It kept eyes off of him when he was at that small town, and then he was back on the highway.

It wasn’t hard to find a phone book once he was in the tiny town, and he knew that there couldn’t be more than one Stilinski in the town, so he abandonded the car near the highway and walked to the address that was listed in the book.

He surveyed the house for a little while to make sure that no one was watching it. He saw that there was one guy in the tree outside of a window, and he waited for almost an hour before that guy left. He didn’t think that he was anyone assigned there by the government, because it just looked like a twenty something year old guy in a leather jacket and blue jeans. Vick climbed up the tree where the guy was watching to make sure that he wasn’t peeping in on Stiles’s dad or anything, but the window that he had been looking through just had Stiles and two other kids sitting in there. 

“We’re playing Lacrosse tomorrow, right?” the kid with dark hair asked Stiles.

“Sure man, sounds great,” Stiles said, and he had on his fakest smile. Vick actually hated that smile. 

“We’ll take it easy on you,” the blond boy said, and Vick wondered why he was lying.

“Okay,” Stiles said. He paused, and Vick knew that right then he was aware of his presence. “Hold on.”

Stiles walked over to the window, where he made eye contact with Vick. To Vick’s surprise, he immediately opened the window and pulled him through. “Dude, what are you doing here?”

“Youngbae found my room,” Vick said, not even bothering to acknowledge the other two in the room. “We need to get out of here. If he found my room, he can find yours, too.”

“This isn’t part of the plan,” Stiles said, and he walked over to his computer. “How could he have possibly found your room?”

“Who’s this?” the dark haired boy asked.

“This is Vick,” Stiles introduced him, “Vick, meet Scott and Isaac.”

Vick nodded at them. They were staring at him like they had never seen a tall Asian guy before, so he ignored them and turned back to Stiles. “Dude, we gotta get out of here.”

“If I leave, my dad will be left without protection…”

“Stiles, if we don’t leave, Youngbae’s going to shoot us in the head,” Vick said.

“We can protect you,” Scott said.

Stiles and Vick looked at each other. “That’s really nice of you to offer,” Stiles said with his fake grin, “But Youngbae is a North Korean assassin. I don’t know what exactly two kids from Beacon Hills…”

“No, we can protect you,” Scott said. “You don’t have to leave again, Stiles. We can protect you.”

“Scott…” Stiles said, patiently.

“Let me prove it,” Scott said, and then Vick watched as Scott and Isaac turned into monsters.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Um... it's been forever, but I've been playing with this chapter so much that I completely hate it now. Hopefully the next one will flow a little better.

Stiles stared at the actual werewolves in his room. He glanced at Vick, who took a step back with him. This was not something that they had been trained for, and it was definitely something that they would have never expected.

“What in the world…” Vick said.

Stiles was in agreement. He was quickly reassessing his worldview, reevaluating what had happened since his arrival in Beacon Hills. “So, the counselor at school has a reason for wondering if I was fitting in with your clique, so I’m going to assume that she knows you are werewolves,” Stiles said. “which means you aren’t a clique, and if the supernatural stories have any validity, you’re a pack. I assume that you weren’t born this way because otherwise I would not have been surprised…”

“This is you surprised?” Isaac asked, his face slowly changing back although his eyes were glowing. 

“Stiles being surprised keeps me from being surprised, which means I’m not shooting you,” Vick said. “Who are you?”

“Vick, this is Isaac and Scott. Scott was apparently my best friend before the whole school thing,” Stiles said. “I can’t remember, because otherwise I would have told you about him.”

Vick nodded.

“You probably have enhanced senses,” Stiles said, “Although they might not be correctly developed, because Vick surprised you coming into the room…”

“It could be that they didn’t notice me because there was someone else watching you when I got here. I stayed until he left, and then I came up…”

“Who was watching me?” Stiles asked.  
Isaac and Scott looked startled, and Stiles heard Vick sigh. “Caucasian man, early twenties, approximately six feet tall, dark hair, light eyes, wore blue jeans, a leather jacket, and biker boots. Moved down the tree like an athlete, and with new information being what it is, I would assume supernatural grace…” Vick paused, like he was remembering something. 

“Sounds like Derek,” Scott whispered to Isaac, although he wasn’t very good at whispering.

“Who’s Derek?” Stiles asked.

“Derek Hale,” Scott said again. 

“Oh,” Stiles remembered the pictures they had looked at a couple of nights before. He had pulled Derek’s picture out to look at it some more, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone that. “I think that we should go see him. Find out why he’s watching me, and maybe tell me a little bit more about how you think werewolves are going to be an effective countermeasure to North Korean assassins. In the meantime, we’re going to have to find a place to hide you, Vick, because I’m pretty sure that my dad will report that you’re here and not in the hospital. He is a law enforcement agent, after all, and that makes me assume that he will abide by the rules.”

“Let’s take Vick with us,” Scott said, “and maybe one of the pack will let him crash at their place. Boyd’s mom hardly ever notices another kid or two around, and she’ll feed you if you show up at her table.”

Stiles nodded. “Let’s go, then,” he said, grabbing his red hoodie. 

Isaac and Scott crawled into the backseat of Stiles’s Jeep, and Vick took shotgun. Scott called out directions to a burnt-out mansion that wasn’t too far away from Stiles’s house at all. Stiles was nervous about meeting Derek, because he seemed so familiar and at the same time terribly alien. He didn’t pay attention when Scott sent out a mass text to the rest of his pack for everyone to meet up at Derek’s, but he registered that Scott and Isaac were talking about the whole thing. 

“Stiles, the doctor at the hospital said you had an almost supernatural barrier to the drugs, which is why they never affected you like the rest of us,” Vick said. “Do you think that there is something in Beacon Hills that makes people more prone to supernatural activity?”

“I think that’s a lot to assume based on what information we have,” Stiles said.

“There’s definitely something here,” Isaac said. “I mean, Lydia is completely immune to an Alpha bite, which Derek says never happens, ever. And we had an incident of Old Vengence, last year, with a kanima, which happened after Jackson got bit. Right now we’re dealing with an invasion of rat people…” Isaac paused when Scott stepped on his foot. “Ouch Scott!” he yelped.

“Don’t share pack business with outsiders,” Scott told him.

“Stiles isn’t an outsider. He smells like pack,” Isaac protested. “He’s always smelled like pack, even when he first got out of the car with you before you introduced us.”

“Yeah, he has,” Scott said, looking at Stiles. “Why do you smell like pack?”

Vick leaned in closer to sniff at Stiles, and Stiles tried not to laugh. “I have no idea.”

They got out of the car, and Stiles looked up to see the man from his dreams standing on the front porch of the old mansion.

Stiles would admit that he stopped and stared, but only because everyone noticed that Stiles and Derek were staring at each other. It was like Stiles was unaware of anything else outside of the fact that Vick had tensed up beside him and was reaching behind his back to wrap his hand around a gun that Stiles knew would be there. Stiles knew Vick wouldn’t pull it until he saw a threat, but he was reacting to the fact that whatever had so captured Stiles’s attention had put him at risk, because he couldn’t see to concentrate on anything else.

The other people in the clearing felt Vick’s tension, and they were immediately on alert because they didn’t know where it was coming from. They thought maybe Vick was the cause of it, but Stiles couldn’t drag his eyes away from the man on the porch to correct them and bring things back from where they were on high alert. 

“Perimeter clear,” Vick whispered, and Stiles blinked a few times. It was a system that they had established, whenever Stiles would go into deep concentration and Vick would take over protecting their surroundings. It meant that Stiles could take his time to work out whatever was in his head and then come back to reality. It effectively jogged him out of the brief feeling of mania that was working through his entire being, and he moved forward towards the mansion, breaking the feeling of danger that everyone else found themselves in.

“Stiles,” Derek said, and just the sound of his tenor voice was so achingly familiar that Stiles couldn’t breathe for a moment. 

“Derek,” Stiles said, climbing up the steps and coming eye to eye with Derek. Whatever his dreams had been, they had never justified this man’s eye color. It was unreal, the way that the blues seemed to shift into greens and grays, framed by dark lashes. Derek didn’t take his eyes off of Stiles’s face, so Stiles felt comfortable staring at the man in front of him.

“What’s the emergency, Scott?” Derek shifted his eyes away to look at the boy walking up behind Stiles.

“Well, first of all, this is Stiles,” Scott said, “but I guess you already knew that. How come you’ve been spying on him?”

“You told me there was an assassin in Beacon Hills. I had to make sure he didn’t pose a danger to the pack,” Derek said, and Stiles could tell that he was lying but he didn’t comment on it.

“This is Vick,” Scott said. “He just showed up in Stiles’s room, and we need a place to hide him.”

“Scott told me about your supernatural thing,” Stiles said, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Derek to look to see which of the rest of the group that was standing around them reacted to this news.

“We don’t tell people, Scott,” Derek said, like he had explained this to Scott before, “It’s kind of a secret.”

“Stiles smells like pack,” Isaac said, “It makes sense to tell him.”

“He does,” Jackson said, “I could never figure out why, either.”

“So why did you tell the other assassin that you were werewolves?” Derek growled.

“Because they had to convince me that they could protect both Stiles and me. They still have to do that, because otherwise Stiles and I have to leave right now,” Vick said. “I didn’t throw my chance of a normal life away just to die in this little town.”

“There’s another assassin after us,” Stiles said. “One that we made enemies with. He doesn’t care that we were operating under government orders because we killed his lover. He’s going to track us down pretty quickly. Scott said that we could find protection with you. I still think that Vick and I need to leave town.”

“We can protect you,” Derek said fiercely. “You don’t have to leave again.”

Stiles wasn’t surprised at Derek’s reaction, but he couldn’t figure out why. Everyone else around him was taken aback though.

“We can fight an assassin, I’m sure,” Lydia said, “But why are we putting ourselves out for these two? We don’t even know them.”

“Stiles is pack,” Derek said. “He’s been a part of my pack since he was little. I thought you were dead, or my sister and I would have come to get you.”

Stiles nodded. He wasn’t going to ask obvious questions that didn’t deal with his survival right now. “Fine. Why would I put mine and Vick’s life in your hands right now? What is going to keep you safe from Youngbae Dong’s bullet?”

“Bullets don’t work on us too well,” Scott said. “We heal super fast.”

Stiles glanced at Vick, who kept staring out at the yard in front of them. “I don’t care. We have to go. We’re safer on our own. Staying here will only endanger a bunch of kids and your dad. Let’s get a car and go.”

Stiles wanted to agree with Vick. It made no sense to stay with a bunch of kids, none at all. Something was holding him back, though. There was a part of him that wanted to stay near this place, his home.

Stiles knew Vick was letting him stay quiet to run through scenarios in his head. He considered the possibility that an assassin against a pack of werewolves was a situation he couldn’t plan contingencies around because he didn’t have enough information. Too many unknown variables would make an suitable countermeasure impossible. He did know, however, that an assassin around a peaceful town was effective, and Stiles’s and Vick’s presence endangered the town.

“Vick’s right,” Stiles said practically. “We’re better moving.”

“No,” Derek said. “You’re better here, where we can protect you. This is our home turf, it would be impossible for someone to come into this territory without one of us scenting a stranger.”

“I made it here just fine,” Vick said.

“You smell like Stiles,” Scott said. “Are you two boyfriends or something?”

Vick and Stiles both looked confused. “We don’t…” Stiles said, “it’s complicated.”

“We don’t have a sex drive,” Vick rolled his eyes. “We were on MAOI reuptake inhibitors during strategic developmental times in our development, and it essentially killed our sex drives.”

“You were taking anti-depressents?” Danny asked.

“Essentially,” Vick said. “It was given to us so that we wouldn’t have an emotional reaction to what we were doing. They added it to large amounts of psychological therapy and LSD.”

“You were killing people?” Scott asked, horrified. “And they gave you drugs so that you wouldn’t feel bad about it?”

“Essentially,” Stiles said. He thought he heard something, so he squatted down, taking advantage of the new viewpoint to study the woods around Derek’s house. “Incoming at three,” he said.

Vick immediately drew his weapon, pointing it at a new man standing in the trees. “Identify yourself,” he directed.

“Whoa, that’s Dr. Deaton,” Scott said, moving to push Vick’s arm down. “He’s a good guy, he won’t hurt you.”

“Jesus,” Jackson said, “You two are super high strung.”

“You didn’t shoot,” Lydia observed. “If you had been made into a killing machine, then you would have shot…”

Vick stared at Lydia like she was something he had never seen before. He put the safety back on the gun and tucked it into the back of his pants, still not relaxing as the man walked up to the burnt out house.

“What seems to be the emergency?” the man asked, staring at Stiles and Vick.

“Dr. Deaton, this is my friend Stiles Stilinski, and this is his friend from his old school, Vick…”

“Choi,” Vick said. 

Stiles looked up at him, shocked. “You remembered your last name?”

Vick blinked back at Stiles, staring at him. “Just now,” Vick said, and then he reached up and clutched at his head, falling on Derek’s porch.

“Is it a seizure?” Erica asked, but Stiles ran over to lean over Vick’s body as he shook. 

“Vick, Vick,” Stiles shouted, shaking the boy’s shoulder.

“Turn him on his side,” Erica said. She took off her coat and laid it across Vick’s lap, holding his shoulder as he shook. 

“It has to be the medicine. Vick wasn’t reacting right when they were taking us off of it,” Stiles said.

“What medications was he given?” Dr. Deaton asked as he leaned down close to the boy shaking uncontrollably on the ground.

“We had a cocktail. Everyone got different meds. I don’t know which ones they had Vick on; he couldn’t remember things even more than the rest of us. I knew my last name at least,” Stiles said, “and I could remember what my dad looked like, but everything else was a haze…” Stiles kind of lied. He remembered Derek, but he didn’t say anything about that.

“You said you remembered Derek,” Scott protested. Stiles kind of hated him a little then.

Derek didn’t even look surprised, and Stiles wondered how long he had been watching him. That was a question for another day, because Deaton was pulling something out of his pocket.

It didn’t take longer than an eye blink before Stiles had Deaton’s wrist in his hand. “What are you doing?”

“This is a mild sedative,” Dr. Deaton calmly explained. “I want to see if it will…”

“I just said I don’t know what drugs are in his system,” Stiles said. “What if he has a reaction?”

“It’s a muscle relaxant, it has no known neurological effects,” Dr. Deaton said. “Your friend hasn’t stopped shaking, and I think that this will effectively reduce his body’s reaction to whatever memories are affecting him this way.”

Stiles stared. He didn’t know what to do, it wasn’t like he was qualified to take care of someone who was basically going through withdraws during his time at School 187. He hoped that the doctor knew what he was doing.

“Let’s move everyone inside,” Derek said, “we’ll be better able to protect them here. Stiles, I’m going to call your dad and tell him where you are.”

“Don’t tell him Vick is here,” Stiles said, ready to do anything to protect his friend.

“Don’t worry, we’re good at keeping secrets,” Scott told him. 

Stiles was only worried when Isaac snorted.

“The rest of you, you have school tomorrow. That includes you, Stiles,” Derek said, “You all should probably go home and sleep.”

“I’m not leaving Vick,” Stiles said, “you don’t know how he might wake up. You might need someone here in case he’s disoriented.”

The doctor nodded his head. “What kind of training were you given?”

Stiles headed inside with the doctor. “The usual: Strategical Planning, Marksmanship, Interrogation, Counter Interrogation, Anatomy, Observation, Self-Defense, Offensive Fighting, Riot Control, Stalking…”

“Dude,” Scott said, “You’re creeping me out.”

Stiles blinked at him, but then he busied himself with making sure that Vick was comfortable on the sofa. He sat with his back to the wall and pulled a pistol out of the back of his pants while his friend’s body slowly stopped shaking on the couch, and Stiles kept an eye on the room, shifting whenever anyone got too close to Vick.

“Tell me about being werewolves,” Stiles told Scott and Derek. “I need more information.”

The rest of the pack looked uncomfortable, but Derek settled down in an arm chair across from Stiles. “You know almost everything about werewolves, you practically grew up in this house.”

“Suffice to say that I don’t remember shit,” Stiles said, “So start me at the beginning, and drag me forward. Quickly. I need to know if you can deliver on your promise to help keep Vick, and more importantly this town, safe.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... it goes without saying that I have no background in medicine or medication necessary to write this chapter. My source on this was my dad, and while we talked a lot about this I couldn't ask him for more advice on this chapter because he died a few months ago. If you see any glaring errors, feel free to tell me, but otherwise just smile and nod your head.

Derek sat on a chair in the corner of his living room, watching as his Pack asked Stiles questions. Vick was still lying on the couch, his body shaking occasionally as Erica sat next to him, watching him closely. 

“We can tell you about werewolves,” Dr. Deaton was saying, “but I think that we need to figure out what’s going on with Vick first. You said that he didn’t know his name?”

“No one was ever called by their real names at school,” Stiles said, “and the fire we set destroyed most of the information about us. We did that on purpose.”

“It doesn’t bother you to talk about this?” Dr. Deaton asked. “You’ve been pretty open with the information about what happened, and from what I understand you’re not supposed to be.”

“There are multiple reasons that I seem open,” Stiles said. “Most of which is because I have only informed you of information that is not relevant and that you could easily access from any computer, given the time and inclination to hack government databases. There are many things that I will not talk about unless the situation calls for it. It’s one of the reasons that the government allowed me to be discharged quickly.”

“I think that Vick’s safety comes first, and I think that we need a doctor who specializes in this sort of thing.”

“The only doctor who is qualified to work with Vick is employed by the sanitarium that he escaped from,” Stiles said. 

“Then we need to call him,” Derek said.

“He might tell,” Stiles protested.

“He has doctor-patient confidentiality, doesn’t he?” Lydia asked.

“I don’t know what the circumstances are surrounding that, the government might have changed rules concerning us, especially since I’m not sure that Vick is an American,” Stiles said.

“Call him and ask him,” Dr. Deaton said, “He can’t lie about it, at least.”

“He could lie,” Stiles protested.

“No,” Derek said, “We’re werewolves. Lying is the one thing you cannot do to a werewolf. Call him and put him on speaker.”

Stiles nodded after staring at Derek for a moment, and then pulled out his phone. He dialed the number to Dr. Kwon and put the phone on the table.

“Yuhbohseyo?” a man answered the phone.

“Hi, is this Dr. Kwon?” Stiles asked. 

“Speaking, who is calling?”

“That’s not important,” Stiles said. “I need help.”

“Are you in danger?” Dr. Kwon asked. “It might be more appropriate to call 911…”

“No, I need some answers. My… my hyung needs help,” Stiles said. 

The man paused for a moment. “You’re an American and you’re calling someone your hyung? Is this…? No, wait, don’t answer that. I need you to make sure that your hyung is hydrated. If you can find an anti-depressant, preferably an SSRI or in a pinch St. John’s Wart, your hyung needs to take those every six hours. Low dosages, you understand? Every six hours. Don’t move from where you are, I’ll be there. I am being recorded.” And then Dr. Kwon hung up the phone. 

“Jesus Christ,” Jackson said. “What the hell does hyung mean?” 

“Older brother,” Lydia said. “Right?”

Stiles blinked. “Yes,” he said. “Vick helped me when I first got to school, and I protected him afterwards.”

“How is Dr. Kwon going to find us?” Dr. Deaton asked.

“Your phone,” Danny said. “He’s going to track your phone number.”

“I can get a hold of some Prozac,” Dr. Deaton said, “For an SSRI, I have some at my clinic. Scott?” 

“I’ll go get it,” Scott said, taking the keys to Deaton’s clinic. 

“Pick up a saline bag and some needles?” Dr. Deaton continued. 

Scott nodded, and continued out the door.

“Why do you have Prozac?” Stiles asked.

“Animals can get depressed, too,” Deaton said. 

Stiles nodded his head, and then stared at Vick. “It must be the inhibitor part of the SSRI that he needs, isn’t it?” 

“I would assume so,” Dr. Deaton nodded his head. “Did they give you things like Ecstasy at your school?”

“Everyone had their own cocktail,” Stiles explained. “I would assume that Vick probably got some form of it.”

“Not you?” Dr. Deaton asked.

“They played around with my dopamine and norepinephrine levels more than my serotonin, most of my medication was pain killers,” Stiles said. “They said I didn’t have as many problems with what we were doing as the other kids.”

“You didn’t have problems killing people?” Scott asked.

“They gave me some pretty black and white cases,” Stiles said. “The people that we eliminated were not… they weren’t political criminals. The people we killed…” Stiles stopped, confused. His hand was shaking. “That’s weird,” he commented, staring at his body.

“Have you had emotional reactions before?” Dr. Deaton asked him. 

“No,” Stiles said, staring at his body starting to shake. “I don’t have emotional reactions.” He sounded a little out of breath. 

Derek leaned forward, wanting to help in any way that he could.

“Have you ever had a panic attack?” Dr. Deaton continued to ask him. 

Stiles looked up at Dr. Deaton, tears falling down his face. “Is that what’s happening?” He was gasping for breath, and Derek could see that Stiles was forcing himself to breathe, trying to remain calm even as his body was betraying him. Stiles was sweating, and the black part of his eyes were slightly enlarged, and he smelled really… good for some reason.

“Everyone needs to go outside,” Dr. Deaton announced, and Derek was a little pissed that Dr. Deaton looked like he was about to laugh. “Stiles, you stay in here with me.”

“I’m staying,” Derek growled.

“Fine, everyone else go out,” Dr. Deaton said. When they had, he turned to Derek. “I need you to not react to Stiles at all. Don’t touch him.”

Stiles was shaking, trying to breathe, but mostly trying to stay in control.

“Stiles, you need to start thinking about something else,” Dr. Deaton told him. “You’re safe here, you have friends and no one here can hurt you…”

“I can’t lose it,” Stiles whispered, “I have to make sure that everyone is fine. If I lose it for a second everyone is in danger…”

“Stiles, you said that they messed with your dopamine and norepinephrine levels?” Dr. Deaton asked.

“Yes, to make my decisions more logical…”

“Before you left, your father had you diagnosed with ADHD?” Dr. Deaton asked.

“My psychiatrist at the school disagreed with that assessment,” Stiles said, “saying my behavior was more typical of high-IQ than that of ADHD.” 

“Do you agree with this diagnosis?” Dr. Deaton asked, and Derek realized then that was what he was doing: he was distracting Stiles. 

“I think it’s a possibility that I could have had a dual diagnosis, one does not immediately negate the other,” Stiles took a deep breath. 

“Is it possible that after regulating your body’s chemicals, your body is returning to its natural state? How long has it been since you’ve stopped taking your medications?”

“Six weeks, four days, and 15 hours,” Stiles said. “Oh my God,” he whimpered suddenly, curling over his lap. “Something’s wrong with me.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Dr. Deaton said, and he smiled at Stiles. “Your body is simply reacting in the way that a normal teenage boy’s body reacts. When you experience adrenaline, attraction, or in some boy’s cases if the wind blows a certain way, your body will react to that stimuli by sending blood to your reproductive organs…”

Derek realized that Stiles had just gotten his first erection since he was eight, and he tried not to laugh his ass off. 

Stiles was frowning, trying to think. “An erection?” he asked. “Are you saying I got an erection, and this is what it feels like? How do people function…?”

“Well, Derek, since you wanted to stay, why don’t you take Stiles upstairs and explain things to him?” Dr. Deaton had that twinkle in his eye that said he just really wanted to laugh, and Derek knew exactly how he felt. 

“Thanks,” Derek said dryly, “C’mon Stiles, let’s go upstairs. I’ll tell you how to take care of it, and then I’m going to leave you alone.”

Derek wanted to laugh his ass off, but he figured that more than that he didn’t want to scar Stiles, especially since the boy was his mate. Eventually, he wanted to wrap Stiles long arms and legs around his own body and lose himself, but laughing at his first erection was probably not going to help him achieve that goal in the long run. 

“Why are we going upstairs?” Stiles winced, and Derek knew it was probably from the boner he had. He couldn’t have had it for that long, long enough to have been painful, but then again since he had never had one before it might just be extra sensitive.

“You probably don’t want everyone hearing… or seeing what we’re going to talk about,” Derek said. “I can’t believe I have to give you The Talk.”

“What is The Talk?” Stiles asked, sighing in relief when they were off the stairs. 

Derek led him into his bedroom. He might not feel that it was right to do this with Stiles, but in all fairness he totally wanted to. 

“Just… get on the bed and get comfortable,” Derek said, ducking into the bathroom to return with a wet washcloth. 

“Okay,” Stiles said, gingerly moving onto the bed.

“I’m going to leave before you do anything,” Derek said, more promising himself than Stiles, “And then you’re just… going to touch yourself until it goes away.” 

“I’m going to what?” Stiles asked, his voice dropping a few notes and getting throaty. 

“It’s called masturbating?” Derek asked. “You’ve heard of it.”

“Yeah, but… I never thought that I’d…” Stiles blushed, and Derek really wanted to run his tongue against the sudden redness in his cheeks. He wondered briefly how far it led down before he swallowed and made his eyes stay on Stiles’s instead of roaming down his body like he wanted. 

“It’s normal,” Derek was quick to assure him, “Every guy on the planet does it. I promise. So… just do it, and come back so we can concentrate on Vick, okay?”

Stiles nodded, and Derek left quickly before he let himself offer to help out. 

He did listen at the door though. That was his mate touching himself on his bed in there, and damned if he couldn’t stop listening to what he wanted to participate in more than life itself. He leaned against the door, touching the wood as he listened to Stiles gasping a little, and then the slow, rhythmic sounds of skin against skin, the low gasps for air, the smell of arousal attacking Derek’s senses like a siren’s call. Derek fisted his fingers so that he wouldn’t barge back into his bedroom, where his mate was on his bed innocently stroking himself. It was the worst sort of torture that he could have ever imagined, and Derek had a pretty decent and dramatic imagination. 

He made himself go downstairs just as Stiles’s breathing pattern changed. If he heard the boy orgasm he wasn’t sure that he would have been able to prevent himself from going into the room and licking the mess he made off of his body or rolling in it on the sheets. He wanted all of that for himself, but he knew that until Stiles recognized what Derek was to him it would be creepy and wrong on so many levels. 

Derek walked down the stairs, his conscience clear enough to meet Dr. Deaton’s gaze. He glanced at Vick, who was still shaking a little on the couch. 

“What are we going to do with him?” Derek asked Dr. Deaton. 

“I think that Dr. Kwon is going to be more qualified to answer that question than I am. I can’t tell you what was done to those children, but the more Stiles talks and says absolutely nothing the more worried I am,” the veterinarian answered him.

“What do you mean? Stiles has told us a lot of stuff,” Derek said.

“No, not really. He’s given us details that he would have given in any report, but I have a suspicion that he and Vick lived through a lot more than what they’re saying. I think that something beyond what’s being reported went on in that school, and I don’t think that any of the truths that we discover are going to be easy to swallow. On top of that, if these kids have an assassin from North Korea after them, I’m scared of what they did to garner that attention.”

Derek swallowed. “You mean you think that these boys are monsters?”

“I think that they have a very skewed view of morality, and an education that elevates their potential for evil. This isn’t the simple fight for territory or status that werewolves fight for, Derek. This is something else. These kids weren’t recruited because they’re cute and easily accepted. I don’t think that either Stiles or Vick would have developed normally outside this school, not that they exactly did inside of the school. We need to find out why they were recruited and exactly what they were recruited for.”

“And I can answer that,” another voice said from the doorway of the Hale House. “After I discover Vick’s status,” Derek looked over, and his eyes almost bugged out at the sight of the man standing in front of him. 

He was shorter than Derek by a few inches, but he was uncomfortably beautiful in an androgynous type of way. His hair had been dyed cotton candy colors of pink and blue, but his eyes were slanted and dark brown. He had full lips that he bit down on, and his skin was poreless and clear save for one single mole on his cheekbone. 

“Who are you?” Derek growled.

“I’m Dr. Jiyong Kwon,” the man said, holding out a hand. “I’m here for Seunghyun.”

“Who’s Seunghyun?” Derek asked, stuttering over the pronunciation a bit.

“Vick. His name is Seunghyun Choi,” Jiyong’s eyes slid over to the man sleeping on the couch, and he cringed when he saw him shake. He immediately started moving towards the teenager, but Derek stepped between them quickly.

“I want to see some ID, and I want to know how you found us so quickly,” Derek said.

“Quickly?” Dr. Kwon asked, raising an eyebrow. “There are things that you wouldn’t understand…”

“Dr. Kwon,” Dr. Deaton stood up from the shadows in the room.

“Alan,” Dr. Kwon sounded surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“This is my territory,” Dr. Deaton said as if that explained things. “Dr. Kwon is an associate of mine, Derek. He can help the boy.”

Derek stepped aside and let the psychiatrist in. Dr. Kwon immediately sat beside Vick and opened a bag that Derek hadn’t even seen him carrying in, and he removed several glass bottles and a syringe, along with some needles wrapped in plastic. He took Vick’s temperature and then looked into his eyes, and then he set up the syringe and plunged it into the rubber cap of one of the bottles, holding it upside down as he pulled a funny lavender colored liquid out of it. He pulled the needle out, snapped it and then pushed all of the air out, and he injected the liquid into Vick’s neck. 

The tremors stopped immediately. 

Stiles walked down the stairs then, face flushed and lips swollen from biting them, and Derek couldn’t pay attention to what was happening to Vick then. “Everything better?” Derek asked him.

“Yeah…” Stiles sounded breathless for a moment, and then he saw Dr. Kwon next to Vick. “Who are you?”

Introductions were made again, and towards the end Vick was sitting up on the couch. 

“Stiles?” Vick asked.

“I’m here, buddy,” Stiles said.

Vick started saying something in that language they had spoken on the phone, and Dr. Kwon started speaking it with them so Derek assumed that it was Korean. 

“Stiles is my dongsaeng,” Vick told Dr. Kwon, and Derek had no idea what that meant. “Stiles knows everything about me, and I protect him.”

“I protect my hyung, too,” Stiles said. “Always.”

Dr. Kwon nodded. “It isn’t strange for the two of you to feel responsible for each other, but your missions are over. You don’t need to keep fighting…”

“Youngbae Dong found me in my hospital room, Dr. Kwon,” Vick said. “It won’t take much for him to find Stiles, now that his position is stationary and open.”

“The government will take care of Youngbae,” Dr. Kwon said, “But Vick, we need to get you back into the hospital…”

“No,” Stiles said, “They really won’t. We’re an inconvenience to them, especially when the trials start. Vick and I were sent out more than any other team, and when we testify we’re the most qualified to give out information on what exactly they had us doing because we understood what was going on. Most of the other kids didn’t, or they didn’t know as much as we did. Having us taken out by a North Korean assassin would make their lives much easier, so the government has no incentive for keeping us alive.”

“What makes you think that you’re going to know more than the other kids, Przemysław?” Dr. Kwon asked. 

“Because I was the one who doled out assignments, these past few years, after studying the results of the others’ abilities,” Stiles told him.

“That is unfortunate,” Dr. Deaton said. “But I believe that his logic is sound. The best hope that Przemysław and Seunghyun have for survival would be right here, Jiyong.”

“What makes you think so?” Dr. Kwon asked. “No offense meant towards the safety of your territory, but I can keep Seunghyun safe and if Przemysław needs to come along too, then I can keep him safe also.”

“You are but one dragon,” Dr. Deaton said. “Here, they have a pack of wolves.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to promise that it won't take me so long to update this next time, but I can't. It's coming really slowly, and I don't know how to speed things up. 
> 
> Oh, for those that don't speak Korean, Hyung means older brother (only if you're a boy calling another boy older brother, it changes to Oppa if you're a girl calling another boy older brother,) Dongsaeng means younger sibling, sex doesn't matter at that point, and Jiyong's name actually means Dragon.

**Author's Note:**

> Vick is a character from the Korean television series Iris. He is played by Seunghyun Choi, a Korean rapper by the name of T.O.P in the band Big Bang. He's the taller one in my icon.


End file.
